Hispanic Heritage Month should be about celebrating, not fearing ICE detention
As my mother and I were going through the belongings of my recently departed father, she found his immigration card from 1968 showing he could legally reside in the USA.
My father, whose obituary recently published in the AJC, was born in Colombia, South America and he came to the U.S. in the mid-1960s at a time when American immigration laws were opening up after decades of excluding people from developing countries.
He eventually earned his doctorate and his citizenship, and he became a founder and president of a college. He spoke English fluently but with a heavy accent, and his darker skin, high cheekbones and thick eyebrows revealed his heritage.
These details struck me as I read the Sept. 8 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume its aggressive operation in Los Angeles.
The court majority offered no explanation for why agents – in contrast to a lower court decision – may once again use race, ethnicity, accent, gathering places and stereotypical employment (i.e., construction and agriculture) as a “relevant factor” to determine if someone could be suspected of being an illegal immigrant and be detained.
As Hispanic Heritage Month begins Monday, Sept. 15, to honor the achievements and contributions of the 65 million Americans in that demographic, the court decision casts a pall on the celebration as the citizens and permanent residents among them may now feel like suspects in their own country just because they are Latino.
Origins of Hispanic Heritage celebration date back to LBJ
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, issued a proclamation, following a joint resolution by Congress, declaring Hispanic Heritage Week on Sept. 15. That week included numerous Latin American Independence Day celebrations, including that of Mexico.
“The people of Hispanic descent are the heirs of missionaries, captains, soldiers, and farmers who were motivated by a young spirit of adventure, and a desire to settle freely in a free land. This heritage is ours,” Johnson wrote.
Twenty years later, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, extended that celebration to a month.
According to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, he said: “[In] the mad rush of modern American life, some people have not learned the great lesson of our Hispanic heritage: the lesson of family and home and church and community.”
Latinos became a prized voting cohort for presidential candidates, and in 2024, President Donald Trump earned 48% of these voters’ support, according to the Pew Research Center – a record for a Republican presidential candidate.
Trump promised an aggressive immigration crackdown, but he said he would go after criminals.
Instead, he cast a wide net that picked up people with visa waivers, temporary protected status, nonviolent undocumented immigrants, permanent residents and even U.S. citizens. Videos showcase masked ICE agents forcibly detaining suspects.
Some, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, were sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process before the courts ordered the government to return him to the U.S.
Army veteran and U.S. citizen George Retes was detained by ICE this year for three days without charges, a hearing or access to a lawyer, and is now suing the federal government.
In Georgia, the AJC has documented cases of immigrants detained for minor charges in their past.
Débora Rey and her husband Martín Verdi, who voted for Trump, decried the confinement of their son Agustin Gentile, at Stewart Detention Center, for a 2020 misdemeanor.
Spanish-language journalist Mario Guevara was arrested while covering a protest of ICE raids in DeKalb County on June 14. Even though local authorities eventually dropped the charges, including obstruction of law enforcement and unlawful assembly, he has remained in federal immigration custody for three months.
Supreme Court decision reveals contrast in perspectives
While the majority of justices in the recent ICE decision did not issue an explanation for undoing the lower court’s ruling, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered a concurring opinion.
“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a concurring ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention commonsense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.”
“Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter,” he added.
That was not the case with Retes, and Guevara had a legal work permit.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the three-member minority, said: “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.
It’s not lost on me that the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 (Students for Fair Admission, Inc., case) that race may not be a factor in college admissions, but it can be for immigration enforcement today.
Fear is creating a two-tiered system of U.S. citizenship
From Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, there will be a variety of Hispanic Heritage Month events across metro Atlanta and Georgia, where 11% of the population is Latino.
The thought crossed my mind that these celebrations may pose a safety risk to anyone there with a certain look or way of speaking.
On Sept. 9, Pulitzer Prize finalist Gustavo Arellano of Los Angeles Times wrote a column titled “I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m always going to carry my passport now. Thanks, Supreme Court.”
Are we resorting to a two-tiered system of citizenship where some Americans must carry passports to prove their legal status while others don’t have to?
To obtain my Real ID license, I had to show my U.S. birth certificate and passport. Will I have to carry those around with me too, just in case, to avoid getting sent to Stewart or El Salvador?
That shouldn’t be the way things are in a nation committed to freedom. But here we are today. It isn’t right, but it is what it is.
David Plazas is the opinion editor at the AJC. Email him at david.plazas@ajc.com.
About the Author
David Plazas joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in May 2025 after a 25-year award-winning career as a reporter, editor and opinion editor for The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida, and most recently, The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, as an opinion writer and editor, video podcast host, newsletter writer and sought-after moderator.
